Lesson
48: “The Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord”
Alison Coutts
Quotes:
Jörg Klebingatt
“Acknowledge and face your
weaknesses, but don’t be immobilized by them, because some of them will be your
companions until you depart this earth life. No matter what your current
status, the very moment you voluntarily choose honest, joyful, daily repentance
by striving to simply do and be your very best, the Savior’s Atonement envelops
and follows you, as it were, wherever you go. Living in this manner, you can
truly “always retain a remission of your sins” (Mosiah 4:12)
every hour of every day, every second of every minute, and thus be fully clean
and acceptable before God all the time.”[1]
Neal A. Maxwell
“Thus gospel hope is a very focused
and particularized hope that is based upon justified expectations. It is a
virtue that is intertwined with faith and charity, which virtues are not to be
understood either when they are torn apart from each other or apart from the
Lord Jesus Christ, without whom they are all vague virtues Doubt and despair go
together, whereas faith and hope are constant companions. Those, for instance,
who “hope” in vain for (and speak of) the day of world peace when men “shall
beat their swords into plowshares” ignore the reality that the millennial dawn
will be ushered in only by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Neither secular
rhetoric nor secular assemblies will succeed in bringing lasting peace to this
planet. Secularists, meanwhile, have ironically appropriated the Lord’s
language of hope while denying Him! It is He and His ways alone that can bring
about such desirable conditions. There will be no millennium without the
Master. Paul’s futuring focused on the Lord, giving us consolation by holding
forth that which is to come, confirming hope. But this hope develops, as does
faith, “line upon line, precept upon precept; here a little, and there a
little” (D&C 128:21).[2]
Zechariah is prophesying during the
Babylonian captivity. We believe that Malachi saw Elijah coming to the Kirtland
Temple and the restoration of the keys of tithing, the Second Coming, and
temple/family history work. Although Malachi is the last book of the Old
Testament, it isn’t necessarily the last written, in the same way that
Revelation is not the last book written in the New Testament. That being said,
in a literary context, the Old Testament starts with the creation of the earth
and ends with the fear of the destruction of the earth if we do not live up to
our covenants. These two books bridge the Old and New Covenants (Testaments).
And the focus is on kept and broken covenants.
Zechariah
10:
Scattering and gathering of Israel
is an example of the mercy of the Lord—happens often throughout the Old
Testament, Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. Also it is a type of the
Atonement—sin causes one to “scatter” spiritually and repentance causes one to
“gather” to the Lord/Zion.
Zechariah
11:
7–14
The two staffs—Beauty and Binds—are symbols of the covenants which (in
my opinion) the crucifixion of Christ breaks so that Israel is scattered after
the 30 pieces of silver are paid.
Zechariah
12:
6–10 the Redemption of Judah and
Jerusalem
Zechariah
13:
Messianic prophecies about the
Second Coming and Jews recognizing who the Messiah is/was.
The Lord remembers His covenant with
the Jews, but they do not remember:
Verse 6 is one of the most poignant
in all scripture in my opinion: “And
one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer,
Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”
Zechariah
14:
Here is the Messiah that the Jews
expected—a Messiah who cleaves mountains into two, creates valleys, and
rivers—heals the Red Sea and fights for His people. It is ironic that at
Christmas it is the baby Jesus who is celebrated by mainstream Christianity,
not necessarily the mission He accomplished. The Jews at the time of Christ
looked for the Messiah in Zecharaiah, not the child in Isaiah. Latter-day
Saints recognize the impact of the whole of Christ’s premortal, mortal, and
Millennial life and mission.
Malachi
3
Judgment is for everyone and has to
do with adherence to covenants. D&C 76:103–5/ telestial kingdom is the same
list of those who will experience the “dreadful” day.
Malachi
4:5–6
Condition of our heart is what will
be judged. If we have love enough to unselfishly serve our families, not only
living but also dead, and also our neighbor, then it will be a “great” day, not
a “dreadful” day. Without genealogical links, there are no families. So we are
cut off with the same curse as is detailed here for the whole earth. Equally, the
covenant of tithing is a vital component of gathering, being both temporal and
spiritual. Blessings that come from tithing are both spiritual and
temporal—temples need to be built, missionaries need to be sent out. Our
tithing blesses not only us and the Church, but the world.
[1]
https://www.lds.org/ensign/2014/11/saturday-afternoon-session/approaching-the-throne-of-god-with-confidence?lang=eng.
[2] Notwithstanding
My Weakness (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 41–42.
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